Jen's village

Upon returning from Odessa, we hopped off our transport in Jen's village, greeted by mosquitoes loving the flooded Nistru River, her host parents, and the Romanian language (which at this point I hadn't heard for about a week).

In-between three hour naps and eating, we had some really great experiences with Jen's host family. Fulfilling one of my wishes, Jen's host mom showed us how she makes her homemade brinza (like feta cheese). This is one of the last things I needed to learn, in order to recreate a Moldovan masa back home. Now the trick is to have my dad find someone with a dairy cow, because I'm pretty sure that pasteurized Dairy Gold wouldn't quite do the trick. Jen's host mom has seven cows right now (probably triple the average). In the spring she could hardly keep up with the milking, but now the heat is getting to the animals and they are eating less. Now she averages about 30 liters of milk a week.

In fact, the last night of our stay she invited me to milk the cows with her. I am not going to bother describing this in detail, all you need to know is that my tenure lasted less than ten minutes since my pour aim seemed to spray the milk directly down my leg instead of into the bucket. Opa!

From that fresh cheese, we helped Jen's host mom make dumplings. This is a really labor intensive job for one person, but for a team of four, it took less than an hour. Above, Jen is whipping up the potatoes for the second batch. When you eat this dish, you can't decide if you like the cheese or potato ones better, so you just keep testing them out until you can't remember how many you have eaten. Sneaky little things!

I really enjoyed spending time with Jen's host family. For starters, she has a host mom and a host dad. I don't have a host dad, and hers is a character. I guess he is quite the midnight snacker, and when Jen started figuring it out, they started referring to the pisica (cat) that got into the refrigerator at night. But I guess if every host family had Jen making fresh peach cobbler for them, they would all have that problem too.

The three of us (Craig, Jen, and me) are quite a team, but among us Craig is the sole Russian speaker. That came in really handy when Jen's host dad's Moldovaneasca started taking on Romanian verbs and Russian nouns. Also, Craig said her host dad speaks Russian with a Romanian/Moldovan accent. Add to this mix that the wine glass was being passed around during these conversations and you have three rather mind-blown volunteers. Off Doamne!

Moldova and Me

I am on "The Dating Game" and I just chose bachelor number two. For the sake of the story, let’s assume bachelors number one and three were graduate school and an entry level government job, respectively. But Bachelor number two found a way to be both intellectually stimulating and adventurous. Let the courtship commence!

You see, coming to Moldova, I understood about as much as one can about one strange man among three behind a semi-translucent screen. I knew how old it is (at least the modern system of governing), what languages it speaks, and what religion follows. But that’s not exactly enough to buy a bridal magazine over.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to do that thing that most Type A personalities do after the first few dates—define the relationship. This has literally consumes every spare second. Moldova and I have been together for five months now, but the last few mornings have felt like blind dates all over again. What do I have to offer Moldova? Ce noi putem sa facem impreauna? What can we do together?

Work with my primary partnership has slowed down considerably, though we did have our first English club session. The youth have been clamoring for this. I am not a teacher, but I’m doing my best. The rest of my time has been divided among some more centralized Peace Corps projects among volunteers, and working at the children’s center.

Talk about blind dates! The director of the children’s center and I thought we were going to see some playground equipment the other day. To get to the manufacturer, a small furniture factory, we rode a bus to a village neither of us had ever been to before, crossed some really big railroad tracks, walked through a vodka factory, stopped to look at some ostrich and deer—no joke, just some ostrich and deer hanging out in a vodka factory attached to a furniture factory in Eastern Europe—and finally arrived at the correct office to find out that the man we wanted to speak with wasn’t there. At least that’s how I think the story should be interpreted, it all happened in Russian. But is that not how most relationships go? Some days it just seems you and your partner don’t speak the same language?

Aşa e viaţa! This is the life!